With the growing popularity of Web 2.0, a new data interchange format called JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is emerging as a useful way to represent data in the business logic running on browsers. Learn how PHP-based server programs can convert XML-formatted enterprise application data into JSON format before sending it to browser applications.

Ruby on Rails provides an excellent platform for building Web applications. Discover how to use the built-in Asynchronous JavaScript™ + XML (Ajax) features of the platform to give your application the Web 2.0 rich user interface experience.If you haven't heard about Rails, then welcome back from your trip to planet Zorton, which is the only place you could go and not hear about Ruby on Rails over this past year. Rails is at its most appealing when it allows you to get your application and its features up and running quickly. Rails' built-in integration with the Prototype.js library for Ajax makes it easy to build so-called rich Internet applications quickly.This article takes you through the steps of building a Rails application. It then dives right into using the Ajax features to build the JavaScript code that reads and writes data from the server.

Ruby on Rails is a Web application framework that aims to provide an easy path to application development. In fact, the framework's proponents claim that Ruby on Rails developers can be up to ten times more productive than they would be when using traditional J2EE frameworks. While this statement has been the source of considerable debate in the Rails and J2EE communities, little has actually been said about how Rails and J2EE architectures compare. This article will contrast the Rails framework against a typical J2EE implementation using common open source tools that are regularly found in enterprise applications.

Over the last couple of decades we've seen a growing gap between database-oriented software developers and in-memory application software developers. This leads to many disputes about how to use database features such as SQL and stored procedures. In this article I look at the question of whether to place business logic in SQL queries or in-memory code, considering primarily performance and maintainability based on an example of a simple, but rich SQL query.

This book is a tutorial and reference for the Ruby programming language. Use Ruby, and you'll write better code, be more productive, and enjoy programming more. These are bold claims, but we think that after reading this book you'll agree with them. And we have the experience to back up this belief.

There have been many extravagant claims made about Rails. For example, an article in OnLAMP.com1 claimed that “you could develop a web application at least ten times faster with Rails than you could with a typical Java framework...” The article then went on to show how to install Rails and Ruby on a PC and build a working ‘scaffold’ application with virtually no coding. While this is impressive, ‘real’ web developers know that this is smoke and mirrors. ‘Real’ applications aren’t as simple as that. What’s actually going on beneath the surface? How hard is it to go on and build ‘real’ applications?

I’ll be straight with you. I want you to cry. To weep. To whimper sweetly. This book is a poignant guide to Ruby. That means code so beautiful that tears are shed. That means gallant tales and somber truths that have you waking up the next morning in the arms of this book. Hugging it tightly to you all the day long. If necessary, fashion a makeshift hip holster for Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, so you can always have this book’s tender companionship.